Cebu authorities raid call center for illegal sale of Viagra and other drugs

A call center suspected of illegal sale of Viagra and other sexual potency drugs was raided in Mandaue City, Cebu by the elements of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) and the Mandaue City Police Office (MCPO) on Monday, July 16.

At 10 p.m., the CIDG raided the premises of 724 Care Inc. at the AD Gothong IT Center Building in Lopez Jaena Street, Barangay Subangdaku. The raid was done in the presence of barangay tanods Joel Dublin and Vicente Cabalquinto.

The police confiscated a desktop unit, keyboard, LCD monitor, LAN cable, Plantronics dialer, headset, and power cord, which were then brought to the new 7th Regional Digital Forensic Laboratory in Cebu City. No arrests were made in the raid, however.

But Senior Supt. Gilbert Sosa, head of the Trans-National and Cyber Crimes Division of the CIDG, said in his report to the CIDG director in Camp Crame dated July 17 that they “were not able to seize other computers enumerated in the search warrant considering that the computer work stations laid out in the call center do not contain hard drives and storage media. This was due to the IT Administrator using “cloud computing technology” such as Google Applications in storing their data to avoid tracking of documents and files in the actual sites.” In “cloud computing” or a remote server, data trail can be hidden.

He said they have coordinated with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to save and recover all files and documents from Google used in the fraud activities by the domain name 724care.net under Google Apps accounts.

During the raid, company lawyer Dominador Cafe protested the action of the police, which resulted to the holding of nearly 100 employees within the premises for almost five hours as the CIDG inspected their workplace. “The raid caused a big loss to the company, taking away hundreds of thousands of pesos,” he said, referring to the result of sudden work stoppage.

He denied that the 724 Care Inc. was involved in the selling of enhancement drugs and said it was only involved in selling insurance services. The website of the company, www.724care.org, stated that the company is an outbound call center specializing in the following: outbound appointment settings, inbound sales, and order-taking services. It is said to be owned by a Canadian national married to a Filipina and has been in operation for five years.

Sometime during the raid, Cafe spearheaded the employees to open the door and then questioned the police, which resulted to his arrest as ordered by Sosa. Cafe was brought to a room where he, Sosa, and CIDG-7 chief Senior Supt. Jose Pante talked for about 20 minutes. Afterwards, they went out of the room laughing. Cafe told the media it was just a misunderstanding.

Prior to the raid, police conducted a “test buy” following a complaint filed by Pfizer Pharmaceuticals. The complaint said that unauthorized online sales were being managed using the brand name of Viagra, the popular virility drug of Pfizer, according to Sosa.

He also said that four former employees of the call center have already revealed about the online sales, even before the police applied for a search warrant, which was signed by Executive Judge Marino De la Cruz of the Regional Trial Court Branch 22 in Manila.

According to Sosa, Eli Lilly and Company’s Cialis, another anti-impotence drug, was also being sold online.

Sosa said police will file charges against the call center and its officers for violating two laws: the Republic Act 8484 or The Access Devices Act, which bans “obtaining money or anything of value through the use of an access device, with intent to defraud or with intent to gain and fleeing thereafter,” and the Special Laws on Counterfeit Drugs. R.A. 8484.

But the next day, after the raid, the call center has resumed work, said the security guard of the building.

The Philippines is currently in the “watch list” of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) as one of the nations, which include Malaysia, Brazil, Brunei, Vietnam, Colombia, and Dominican Republic, where fake and pirated goods are very much available.